S&W revolvers hammer or frame firing pin.

B

bullfrog99

New member
Political view aside, someone asked me reciently which revolver was better the S&W 629 with the hammer mounted firing pin or the newer ones made with the frame mounted transfer bar firing pin. I told him other then the fact the trigger can be made lighter on the hammer mounted pin gun i didn't know, so for all you smith&wesson experts, which models are better the ones made right before the change(please no 1960's gun comparison, not fair) or the newer models.
 
Hammer-mounter pin.

Lighter DA trigger is possible, since the mainspring can be made some 20% lighter.

Yes, it is theoretically possible for the pin to break; I've been in the business a long time and could count the number of broken firing pins I've seen brought in for repair without running out of fingers on one hand.

My 625-4 was bought by me in 1995 and has been dry-fired I don't know how many zillion times; the original pin is still going strong. :cool:
 
Tamara is correct; but I kind'a like the frame mounted firing pins.
With a good "action job", these can be made to function just fine.

Best Wishes,
Ala Dan, N.R.A. Life Member
 
ibid and op cit

Tamara's experiences are encouraging. I do know a guy with a hammer-mounted mountain gun It broke every pin they put in it and even S&W couldn't figure out howcome. For the most part they aren't problematic.

Smith and Wesson makes sounds indicating the frame mounted ones are pretty dry fire proof. Have to wait and see on that one but I agree that you can get a nice, slick action with them. If the trigger pulls weigh a little more than some of the tuned older actions, I really don't care as the smoothness of the action and a crisp single action are more important that lightness to me.
 
I've got several of both versions and have lightened the trigger pull on all of them.

The frame mounted pin does seem to need a slightly stronger mainspring. However.... if the action is smooth the difference is all but insignificant.

Given a choice on similar models, I'd go with a hammer mounted pin, but it wouldn't be a deciding factor for me. Maybe just a tie breaker.

Good Luck...

Joe
 
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Has anyone had a frame mounted firing pin fail to retract ?........Thereby binding the cylinder ? Or causing failure to rotate? Or making it difficult to swing the cylinder out ?

Looks possible and me curious.

Have seen a few service weapons that were so dirty they wouldn't reset, but they were all hammer mounted pins and you just ease the hammer back to get it out of the primer. Won't work that way with frame mounted pin.

Blown primer, dirt, broken spring etc come to mind.

Sam
 
If your worried about frame mounted firing pin problems, you could always switch to dual frame mounted pins (like my model 547), for redundancy. :D

Just kidding! ;)

The second pin in the 547 holds the 9mm rim in place, to prevent case set back.

Case set back was a common problem with tapered cases in other revolvers.

Bill
 
Gee, Bill, I always thought that second pin was in case folks had some 9mm rimfire left over from the old days.

Jim
 
"Gee, Bill, I always thought that second pin was in case folks had some 9mm rimfire left over from the old days."

Jim,

:D :D

Good one! :)

Bill
 
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